Zelenskyy’s ‘victory plan’ includes big hurdle for West: NATO membership for Ukraine

Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday his plan to win his country’s fight against Russia’s invasion could bring peace next year, but it contains a step that some crucial Western allies have so far refused to countenance: inviting Ukraine to join NATO before the war ends.

“If we start moving according to this victory plan now, it may be possible to end the war no later than next year,” Zelenskyy told his country’s parliament.

He has recently been trying to win approval for the plan from Western partners, who so far have stopped short of publicly voicing their support for it.

The first point in Zelenskyy’s five-point plan that was presented in a speech to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, is perhaps the most ambitious and the most likely to make Western allies balk: letting Ukraine into NATO while the fighting continues.

Zelenskyy said granting Ukraine membership in the alliance would be a “testament of (allies’) determination” to support Ukraine.

It may, however, be too ambitious a step.

NATO’s collective security guarantee — Article 5 of the military alliance’s treaty — is the pillar on which its credibility is based. It is a political commitment by all member countries to come to the aid of any member whose sovereignty or territory might be under attack.

NATO makes its decisions by consensus, and many allies -– including the United States and Germany -– refuse to allow Ukraine in while fighting continues because they fear being dragged into a wider war with Russia.

At their summit in Washington in July, NATO’s 32 members declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership in the Western military alliance.

Any decision on offering to start membership talks is probably not likely before the next summit in the Netherlands in June.